demond matsuo.

The moment I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere, they are in each other all along.

—Jalal ad-Din Rumi

This poem is how I think of my work. I search the world through seas of papers and inspirations, trying to arrive at a conclusion, a synthesis. The collage serves as a treasure map of sorts, an alchemical illustration pulling you through to understanding my overall meaning. In love we succumb to the new self that arises from the other. This is how I want you to think of my work. To understand you must look closely. There I leave you hints to my thoughts.

To work is terrible. It throws itself over you and appears in strange places, but you must strive on. It has to come out of you. It is a beautiful curse of sorts even though it makes you act as a hermit. The work is important. I paint, but do I exist?

“His iconographic paintings bring back the mystery of meaning and are influenced by primitivism but with an outsider’s attention to detail. The symbols and mythic heros are part of Demond’s attempt to make painting more spiritual. He uses salt, iodine and collage with paint to place his archetypal heros in situations that deconstruct ancient myths to rework them into more hopeful or melancholy settings, creating a Surrealist-influenced state where everyone can find something of themselves in it.”

                                —Louisiana State University Legacy Magazine

The farthest away will notice me, the more distant ones will look at me and my negative ones will live by my hypnosis. I am so rich I have to give myself away.

—Egon Schiele